My plex updated itself and it appears that it started a new server (with the same name as my old server), with nothing in it. How can I restore my old server, I see it in my list, but it shows unavailable. I have tired to uninstall and reinstall Plex and it just keeps bringing back this new server.
The update to server version 1.5.6 is not being performed automatically, if you already had version 1.5.5 installed. I don’t believe that it updated itself.
How did you deinstall your plex server? Did you use some 3rd party deinstaller software to do this?
Did you create a new Windows user account?
Did you previously run Plex server as a Windows service?
How did you deinstall your plex server? Did you use some 3rd party deinstaller software to do this? Not sure how this happen. Windows 10 updated to the Creators update, upon reboot Plex pop up asking me to set up a server, in that wizard, it saw my old server I selected it, however it just created a new one with the same name.
Did you create a new Windows user account? No
Did you previously run Plex server as a Windows service? Yes
@marylandarmy said:
Windows 10 updated to the Creators update,
That’s an important information.
Did you previously run Plex server as a Windows service? Yes
Is the plex icon that is now in your task bar the regular from PMS or is it the one from the “servcie wrapper”?
Did you run the service wrapper under a different Windows user account before the Windows upgrade happened?
It could be, that your old plex data are still residing under that other Windows user account - if it wasn’t deleted somehow.
It’s the regular one from PMS. I have all my plex information backed up. See below.
Can I use this backup to bring back my old server? How do I get rid of this new one?
@marylandarmy said:
Can I use this backup to bring back my old server?
Maybe, of you really did manage to backup all files.
Oftentimes, those backup programs fail to backup the main plex database file completely when Plex server was still running when the backup copy was made.
To bring back the old server, you’d also need the registry branch from your old Windows installation.
I mean, you can go ahead without it, but then you’ll have to re-create all those server shares and your sharees will lose their watched/unwatched status.
- make sure you don’t have any remnants of the Plex Service wrapper left on your system.
- quit plex server
- stop the “plex update service” (using the “services” control panel)
- delete everything in
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\ - restore
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\from your crashplan backup
If after that, upon start of Plex server, your old plex database is not appearing, restore the Plex database backup from an earlier database version, as explained in https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/202485658-Restore-a-Database-Backed-Up-via-Scheduled-Tasks-
This worked, thanks!
This happened to me today. After an upgrade, it created a new server and I was not able to load my original server. I was about to restore from the backup but before doing that. I made a back of my database (always a good idea before doing anything) and then I re-started the upgrade manually. Instead of an install, I did a repair. At the end I was asked to reboot my computer and everything came back normally. I deleted the “newly” created server from my list of available server and that was it.
It might have been luck but the repair functionality did the trick for me!
